He followed that procession to its destination—a downtown hotel—and cruised slowly past as the battered men gathered themselves on the sidewalk outside.
He would know where to find these, also. He left them there to nurse bruised egos and hurting flesh, proceeding on through the city to stop at a public telephone on the outskirts.
He connected with Leo Turrin’s clean line on the first try and told him, “Okay, it’s off and running.”
“So I see,” said the underboss of Pittsfield. There was a wry twist to his words. “I’ve been watching you on TV.”
“Did I look pretty?”
“Positively beautiful. You’re a hell of a guy! Don’t you even care? I spotted your damn bus, buddy, right down there in the thick of it. What a hell of a nerve!”
“What’s the official call, Leo?”
“There isn’t one, yet. I saw your old friend Weatherbee, too, but it was just a quick glimpse. They were shoving TV microphones at him and trying to pry a statement loose. No way. That guy is as cool as they come. So the news people were left with their own assumptions. They’re hypothesizing everything from an aborted hijack to a terrorist attack.” The fed chuckled nervously. “One guy even said that it was painfully reminiscent of the days when Sergeant Mack Bolan was stalking the town.”
Bolan commented, “A lot of people are going to be reaching that conclusion, Leo. I guess the quiet game is over. I hated to blow it away this soon but I just had to step in there. I think maybe a saving grace has come to town and I couldn’t allow it to disappear in an airport ambush.”
“Did you say a saving grace?”
“Uh huh. Didn’t you see anyone else you know on TV today, Leo?”
“No. Nobody surprising.”
“Would you have been surprised to see David Eritrea—or Billy Gino—or Rocky Tamiano?”
“Were they there?”
“They were. You’ll find them right now at the regular watering hole. They managed to squeeze through about thirty guns. I guess Weatherbee decided to cool them on through. He’s got them staked out like fresh meat, I’d guess, just waiting for another nibble.”
“Well, wait. This can get very confusing. Which—?”
“We have second and third parties making war on your turf, Leo. I agree that it is confusing. Eritrea was bringing a war party into town when he was jumped by the other one. The other one is very clearly tied directly into your problems, already. I don’t know where the hell Eritrea fits but—”
“He’s Augie’s consigliere.”
“So he is. So since when does a consigliere lead a war party?”
“Well, Billy Gino is the man for that role. Eritrea must be standing in for Augie. So that means …”
“Right,” Bolan solemnly agreed. “Who’s pushing the purge?”
“I guess it isn’t Augie,” Turrin quietly decided.
“What made you think so in the first place?” Bolan wondered.
“I don’t know, it just fell in that way. Number One, he’s sponsoring me. Nobody with a right mind would come after me without Augie’s clear consent. Number Two, I tried for days to talk to him and nobody would put me through. That is tracks enough on the wall for anyone, buddy. So if it’s not Augie …”
“The local push is coming straight out of the Commissione, Leo.”
“What?”
“Yeah. There’s an Ace in this hardsite in the north hills who is currently calling himself Simon. His contact in New York is using Peter as a handle. That’s sort of biblical, isn’t it-Simon, Peter. I tangled with an Ace Trio down in Atlanta a couple of days ago who were calling themselves John, Paul, and James.”
“That’s very interesting,” Turrin murmured.
“It sure is. I’ve been sort of wondering … who’s calling himself Jesus?”
Turrin made a sound with his lips and said, “Listen, Sarge, this sounds like big stuff.”
“You’re reading along with me, then.”
“What else to read? Someone is trying to engineer a complete takeover. And they’ve bought themselves a house of Aces to stack the game.”
Bolan asked, “When was the last time you talked to Augie?”
“Couple of weeks ago. I usually try to check in with him a couple of times every month. Everything has been beautiful, until a few days ago. Suddenly I’m a leper.”
“Maybe it just fell in that way. Maybe it’s a false reading. Maybe there’s another explanation for Augie. How’s his health?”
“Not exactly roses, since Jersey. But he’s been the boss, no mistake about that He sounded okay to me two weeks ago.”
“What if he’s not okay now, Leo? Suppose the old man is on his death bed right now? And suppose the word got out to some ambitious young Turks. How would you read a play like that?”
“Just about like this one,” Turrin replied quietly.
“How’s your relations with Eritrea?”
“Good enough. A bit of jealousy there, maybe. Other than that …”
Bolan said, “Okay, I think you may be hearing from him. I think maybe he came to town to find out just what the hell is going down here. He got your message out on Long Island this morning. Now he’s come to find out what it means. So make yourself available for a call. But don’t commit your life to that guy’s hands, Leo. Let’s play him very carefully.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Another thing. It’s liable to get very rough around here before it all blows off. I can’t believe that anyone hooked into the Commissione would risk a shooting war over turf like this. No disrespect meant—you know it better than anyone. There’s nothing here worth the effort being expended. So all this has to have another meaning. We need to know, Leo, why Pittsfield fell heir to the war.”
“There’s nothing to say it was ever planned that way.”
“No, there is not. And probably it was not. But someone is guilty of a miscalculation, at the very least. They’re not just blundering around dumb and blind. I could have bought some of that from the Boston and Albany boys—but not from the headshed.”
“Yeah. Okay. I go along with that. Don’t overlook your part in the thing, though, Sarge. It started off as an easy push, not a war. The war came when you came. Remember that.”
Bolan said, “Uh huh. Okay. Just play it close, Leo. And listen—they’re probably already starting to wonder. If Eritrea contacts you, I want you to finger me.”
“What?”
“You’re the Bolan expert. Keep it covered. Tell Eritrea that you smell me. There’s been time enough, now, for it to fit the logic. They knew I was in Atlanta and they know I left there two days ago. Natural progression, buddy.”
“I see it, yeah, okay. And I’ll cool it.”
“Don’t just cool it. Cover it with frost, buddy. Tuck it in and keep it down.”
Turrin laughed. “How come you’re so damn good at giving sensible advice to everyone but yourself?”
“I’m expendable,” Bolan replied lightly.
“The hell you are,” Turrin muttered.
“No tears on my grave, guy,” Bolan mildly chastised his friend.
“Well you just keep one thing in mind,” the little guy railed back. “A lot of people in this damn town are on my side. All I have to do is find the cut and make it. You can’t do that, guy. You’ve got no cuts to make because you’ve got no friends to take. This whole damned town is waiting to eat you whole. So you watch it. You hear me, dammit? Watch it!”
“Thanks for caring, Leo. I’ll do that.”
“Me, too,” the little guy said and abruptly hung it up.
Bolan went back to his battleship and headed for the hills.
Do that, yeah. Bolan would do that. He would watch the whole thing into a roaring conflagration.
And the town was already getting warmer with each hour that passed. Pretty soon, there would be a flash point.
And, sure, he would watch for that, too.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kingdom Coming
>
Bolan resumed the vigil above the hardsite and settled in for a possibly tedious surveillance of the enemy’s forward post of the new war zone. The movements down there were few and routine but there were vague evidences at about eleven o’clock of a general council in progress—a meeting of the full war party—perhaps a pep talk, perhaps something else entirely.
Everyone had gone inside except the gatemen—and it was not for chow, because Bolan had a rather clear view into the kitchen and the only activity there was beer service.
So it was a parley, sure, and Bolan was betting on a combat briefing. They had closed all the windows. The audio was picking up nothing. There had been no telephone activity since Bolan resumed the watch. The parley dragged on for an hour and a half.
Bolan used that time to refurbish his own war effort. He brought the launch elevator down and rearmed with a full pod, then raised it back into the roof and cycled the systems to standby. He also took the opportunity to haul out his personal combat rig and get it ready for another EVA.
After that, it was just wait and watch. His mind wandered along the problem, trying to fit pieces together and finding nothing particularly new or intriguing with which to finish the fit.
At one o’clock he turned a radio to one of the local broadcast stations and picked up on the news. Mack Bolan was back, yeah—that was the news story of the day in Pittsfield. Captain Weatherbee had released the official police view of the matter at the airport. Bolan took note and nodded appreciatively at the “captain” status. The first time around, Weatherbee had been a lieutenant.
There was very little actually reported on the day’s activities. No mention whatever was made of the identities of the “airplane victims.” Bolan tipped his mental hat to Weatherbee for that one, too.
The rest of it was a rehash of the past.
Bolan turned it off and went out to climb a pole.
If the news was out, then maybe it was time for another manipulation of a pressure point.
He patched in his handset and gave the guy a call.
“It’s Bolan,” he said, sort of whispering in the way he’d heard earlier. “Tell Simon, please.”
“What’s that again?”
“You heard it, buddy. Tell Simon.”
He decided that the Aces were using some sort of masking device on the telephone mouthpiece. The guy came on just a bit uptight, but with that same whispery quality to the voice.
“This is Simon. What kind of dumb gag is this?”
Bolan replied in his natural voice—cold and hard. “No dumber than you want to make it, guy. What are you trying to pull? I closed this territory down a long time ago. Now you shag it the hell out of here.”
A considerable silence followed. Bolan thought he heard another instrument join the connection but he would not swear to that. When the guy finally replied, the tone was distant and formal. He said, “Then that really was you. This morning.”
“It was me,” Bolan assured him. “You shouldn’t have exposed yourself that way. Now I’ve got you wired. I’m giving you ten minutes to break camp and take it away. And you take it west, not south. Clear out of the state, guy, and don’t stop until you get to Albany.”
Another overlong wait, then: “What’s your interest?”
“Same as ever,” Bolan told him. “I can’t stand the stink of Mafia—especially not so close to the family plot. Move it, or I’ll move it for you.”
Simon seemed to be studiously avoiding any recognition of threat. He said, in that same formal stilt, “What about those other guys?”
“They’re not camping out, guy. You are.”
“That’s how you found us, eh. You were on them. So now you’re on us.”
“That’s where I am. Ten minutes. It’s all I’ll give.”
“Where’d you get my name?”
“Same place I get everything else. That ten minutes is only a reprieve, Simon, not a pardon. I’ll be getting around to you pretty quick, wherever you are. I was just down in Atlanta, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” the guy lied.
“James knew it. So did Paul. And so did John. The names are pretty cute. Which one of you guys is Judas?”
Another of those long silences enveloped the connection. When the guy came back, it was mad as hell. “Don’t push us too hard, Bolan,” he warned.
“I’ll push it however and wherever I choose,” the Executioner told the Ace. “Right now I’m pushing it the hell off this territory. But you play it as dumb as you please.”
The guy chuckled, but it was not an entirely convincing sound. He said, “You know, I’m really enjoying this. Tell you the truth, I can’t believe it’s happening. I’ve heard about the nutsy stunts you pull but I’d never believed it. Now I believe it. I’m scared to death, guy. Really. I’m shaking all over.”
“Way to go,” Bolan said, and broke the connection.
He returned to the warwagon and immediately activated the fire system. He had not been playing word games with the guy; he had been working toward a specific and calculated effect. Unless he was getting terribly stale at the game, he expected an immediate result.
And, yeah, he was getting it.
That yard down there was suddenly swarming with people. They were sending out walking patrols armed with choppers and beefing up the gate detail. A couple of guys appeared on the roof. He could hear shouted instructions on the audio pickup and he even picked up a couple of ghostly rumbles from inside the house. Then someone opened an upstairs window and began pacing back and forth in front of it.
Bolan zeroed the optics on that point and beamed in an infra-red supplement but the angle was bad and all he could get were shadowy figures. There were at least two people in that room, though, that much was certain—and they were having a very urgent parley. The barrel mike could get nothing better than isolated words, an occasional string of cusswords delivered with considerable emotion, a background rumble of angry voices during most of it.
But there was no doubt as to the reaction. He had struck a very live nerve with that telephone conversation.
The pacing figure at the upstairs window disappeared abruptly. A moment later, two guys came charging out through the front door and ran to a car—one of those used in the airport getaway.
Bolan enabled the rocketry and crosshaired that vehicle as it sped along the drive toward the gate. He tracked it into acquisition and gave it a couple of lengths on beyond the open gate, then he banged his knee and sent them a reminder of what was going down here in Pittsfield.
The rocket leapt away and found its firetrack instantly, veering into the target slot and rustling along in fiery intercept. The armor-piercing nose kissed the target three inches below the hood ornament and erupted into a thunderous wreath of fire that engulfed the vehicle and blew it all the way back to the gate.
The secondary from the gas tank erupted a heartbeat behind the hit to fling flaming droplets in a hellish shower clear back to the house, along with other debris that had been borne aloft by the double blast.
Battle-shocked people were running around down there and screaming at one another in unintelligible phrases when Bolan disabled the fire and tucked it back in. He went over to the audios and readjusted the sensitivity, then returned to the con and watched the reaction below.
There were no foolish soldiers down there. Not a head was showing anywhere. Everything was under cover. The gate was demolished and the earth around it cratered. An entire section of the fence was down. Still, nobody was showing.
It was a cautious force, and Bolan had to reflect on that He reflected for about ten minutes while waiting for something to show. But nothing showed. The fire at the gate burnt itself out; otherwise the scene remained unchanged.
“Now you can shake, Simon,” Bolan muttered tiredly, and he went out to climb the pole again.
He had a brief talk with Leo Turrin and learned that Eritrea had made contact. David had expressed his “amazement” over the distressing sit
uation on Leo’s turf, and promised his full support. The men from Long Island needed a few hours to get it back together; also, the local cops had them staked out and on short leashes. However, David would be getting back with Leo very shortly. Perhaps they could have dinner together.
Turrin had gracefully declined the dinner invitation, pointing out that his head was still being desired for someone’s platter—but he promised to contact Eritrea before nightfall.
That was the way things stood in town.
Bolan did not go into the details, but he filled Leo in with regard to the developments in the countryside. And he added, “This is a super-cautious force, Leo. They are playing a very large game and they’re playing it close to the chest. But I’m pushing their noses in the ground—and they won’t take that for long. I look for a boilover very soon. So you keep it tucked in. I suggest you contact Brognola and try to find out where you stand in the Washington scene. And tell Hal what I said about the boilover. He should be on the alert for special pressure moves and try to follow the play from his end. And make sure all your ends are tucked in tight.”
Leo assured his friend that he was thoroughly safed, and the conversation ended on that note.
When Bolan returned to the warwagon, a goody was awaiting him there. The telephone recorder had scored again. He quickly put the tape on the player and listened to the following conversation:
“Yes, hello.”
The voice from the hardsite: “I had to risk the call, I’m sorry.”
“Uh, just a moment.” A chair creaked and a door closed in the background. Then: “Okay. I heard about your trouble.”
“Why didn’t you give us a call, then?”
“Too warm here, right now. I shouldn’t be doing this, you know. Keep it brief. What can I do?”
“I don’t know what you can do. You know the guy that hit the airport?”
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